272 MELVIN A. GLUTZ 



Nevertheless, there are close and necessary relations between 

 the two sciences. Natural philosophy is preparatory to meta- 

 physics,"^ It acquaints the learner with many concepts existing 

 in material reality, but able to be extended to a metaphysical 

 plane. Notions such as substance and accident, potency and 

 act, cause and effect are metaphysical concepts, commensurate 

 with being as such; but they are used and studied in natural 

 philosophy insofar as they apply to its subject.^^ After be- 

 coming acquainted with them at the level of sensory matter, 

 where they are relatively easy to grasp, a student can more 

 conveniently understand them in their metaphysical context. 

 Natural philosophy is preparatory to metaphysics also because 

 it proves the existence of immaterial being, without which 

 metaphysics would have no formal subject and thus would 

 yield its primacy to natural philosophy.^^ 



Even though metaphysics comes later in the order of learning, 

 it is first in the order of nature and dignity.^* Therefore, it gives 

 an extrinsic guidance to natural philosophy, a guidance that 

 the beginner will scarcely realize or one which he will have to 

 take on authority. Moreover, the defense of the principles of 

 natural philosophy is the function of metaphysics. It is the 

 metaphysician who justifies the validity of our knowledge and 

 who critically investigates the common principles that other 

 sciences borrow and use."^ 



This brief discussion of the relation of the two sciences should 

 suffice to justify a few practical points pertinent to our present 

 study. Due order requires that purely metaphysical questions 

 be eliminated from natural philosophy. Relevant examples 

 would be such topics as creation, pantheism, eternity, the glory 

 of God as final cause of the universe. The immortality of the 



"/wDe Trin., 5, 1, ad 9. 



"/re IV Meta., 5, n. 591; XI, 4, n. 2206-2210; In II Phys., 5, n. 360. 



"* We have studied elsewhere the relation of natural philosophy and metaphysics: 

 " The Formal Subject of Metaphysics," The Thomist, XIX (1956) , 59-74; " Being 

 and Metaphysics," The Modern Schoolrnan, XXXV (1958) , 271-285. 



^* In De Trin., loc. dt. 



"' Ibid.; In IV Meta., 5, n. 590-591. 



